Building on a successful week, acclaimed industry insider Steve Hemmerstoffer, aka OnLeaks, has shown off detailed 3D renders of the final Galaxy Note 9 design. Working in conjunction with 91Mobiles, his images show Samsung discarded parts of both the Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S9 Plus which also gives us indications about the upcoming Galaxy S10.

Galaxy Note 9 concept was too ambitiousyoutube.com/DBSDESIGNING

The obvious starting point is the back of the Galaxy Note 9.

Whereas the Galaxy S9 Plus introduced a horizontal dual camera setup, the Galaxy Note 9 will switch this back to horizontal alignment seen in the Galaxy Note 8. That said, the Galaxy Note 9 will then move the Note 8’s absurdly positioned fingerprint sensor positioning it centrally below the cameras - a far more sensible location and the changes give users the best of both worlds.

What isn’t welcome is Samsung continues to install small, rectangular fingerprint sensors when there is no space constriction on the back of a phone. Fingertips are round Samsung, there’s no excuse for this other than style over substance.

Moving to the front, while I know Samsung will indeed slightly increase the display size, it’s primarily a repeat of the Galaxy Note 8 design. This is fine given the slick design of that phone and the fact Samsung should be applauded for not giving into mindless notch-copying. Similarly, the headphone jack has also been retained which will be a godsend to many.

Interestingly, Hemmerstoffer reveals the Galaxy Note 9 at 161.9 x 76.3 mm will be slightly shorter and narrower than the Galaxy Note 8. It will be fractionally thicker (8.8 Vs 8.6mm) which is undetectable thanks to last-minute screen changes.

At this point, I know what you’re thinking: maybe Hemmerstoffer is wrong, maybe Samsung has more ambitious plans? I wouldn’t hold onto that thought. His track record is virtually flawless.

I am an experienced freelance technology journalist. I have written for Wired, The Next Web, TrustedReviews, The Guardian and the BBC in addition to Forbes. I began in b2b print journalism covering tech companies at the height of the dot com boom and switched to covering con...